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IT industry contestants showed no signs of slowing down as ComputerWorld Canada’s Blogging Idol ended its second week on Friday.

Front-runner Pedro Cardoso offered a mix of reportage and analysis, including highlights on key announcements from conferences like CTIA and the lack of “Skype for iPhone” in Canada. He also continued a series of posts on IT management inspired from late 70s TV sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, as well as the all-too-familiar “death by PowerPoint” problem.

Last year’s third-place Blogging Idol winnner Chris Lau turned up the heat on Cardoso with a series of posts tied to provocative and popular products, including the Palm Pre and Windows 7. He also discussed the so-called browser wars and finished up with an update on RIM’s financial results.

A major new entrant emerged this week that will be a familar name to some readers: Jon Arnold, an independent research analyst who specializes in IP telephony and is a regular on the Toronto conference circuit. Arnold was probably the first contestant to offer original photography on the site alongside his coverage of an Allstream event. He also looked at the Branham Group’s annual rankings of tech firms and touched on timely news stories such as the GhostNet/cyber-spying issue. Another new face, Nathan Griffiths, made his debut with a thoughtful post on communication in IT that drew favourite comments from his fellow contestants.

Perhaps the most literary reference of the week came from Laird John Bowie, who explored the life of novelist Charles Dickens and the way he made his own use of a “legacy network” to connect with others and share his stories. He also used Blogging Idol to shine the spotlight on his home town of Kelowna, where a new technology incubator was launched.

Asma Rafi and Bill Smith also returned with their second posts since the competition began. Rafi chose to delve deeper into green IT, while Smith followed up his thoughts on a “keep it simple” approach to managing technology. Andrew Waugh also looked at green IT and discussed the power of Microsoft’s SharePoint portal software. His most interesting post, however, may have been the one on his personal approach to backing up data.

Last year’s winner, Don Sheppard, tackled one of the more difficult subjects, around excellence in IT, in one of two posts about solving business problems.